It’s My Turn

Bob Turner’s most recent campaign filing exposed nearly $250,000 in unreported money going in and out of his election fund. Turner’s lack of disclosure shows a complete disregard for federal election law.

The people of the Ninth have a legal right to know who is funding extremist Republican Robert Turner and they deserve to know why a guy who touts his business skills can leave a quarter million dollars off the balance sheet.

After warnings from both the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and concerned citizens, Robert Turner amended his previously released preprimary filing which revealed nearly $250,000 in previously unreported spending. When first alerted of obvious omissions on a previous filing, the Turner campaign blamed a technical “glitch” on the FEC website. The latest filing raises as many questions as it answers, exposing not only nearly $250,000 in previously undisclosed spending, but a continued unwillingness to provide information on donors despite an explicit request from the FEC.

The Turner campaign has a history of disregarding very clear-cut FEC regulations. On September 21, 2010 the FEC sent his campaign a request for additional information which asked him to clarify missing information from an earlier filing (July quarterly report). Then, again, in the following filing (pre-primary filing) the very next opportunity for his campaign to provide the FEC with the requisite information, he omitted nearly every single expenditure. On September 27, the Queens County Young Democrats followed up by asking for an FEC investigation of Turner’s omissions and dangerous disregard of election law.

When asked about the missing information, the campaign provided news outlets with a variety of different explanations; first telling reporters that the filing was complete and then, blaming the FEC website for a “glitch,” hardly an excuse that passes the laugh test when other congressional candidates across the country were able to file their receipts and expenditures without a hiccup.

His most recent filing exposes their minor “glitch” as nearly $250,000 of unreported money. This huge sum includes $104,000 of contributions including $60,000 of the candidates own money and $44,000 from donors. The campaign also failed to report $147,000 of expenses. His filing also disregards the law when it comes to donor disclosure. Thirty of his seventy donors are lacking the required disclosure on their occupation or employment.